Record matching

Campaign finance, lobbying and legislative records are kept in separate systems, and names are typed by filers. The same organization can be spelled several ways, and different people can share a name. The map joins records only where the evidence is strong, and otherwise keeps them apart.

Committees

A committee is identified by its CAL-ACCESS filer ID wherever a filing gives one, so similarly named committees stay separate. A federal committee ID keys its own record. When a filing names a committee without a usable ID, the map keeps that committee under the name it was filed as, which can leave one committee on two records.

Donors

Givers on campaign statements have no ID. An individual donor is kept by name together with employer, and an organization donor by name. Two different people with the same name and employer can end up on one record, and one person filed with different employers on two.

A person's roles stay separate. A candidate who gives to their own committee appears as a candidate and as a donor.

Candidates and legislators

Candidates and legislators are joined through a reviewed crosswalk of names, not by a shared surname alone. A legislator is added to the map from a bill's published author.

Campaign and lobbying organizations

Campaign filings and lobbying filings are separate systems, so one organization can appear twice: once as a lobbying organization and once as a campaign filer or donor. The map joins them only on the organization's own CAL-ACCESS registrations, and only when the name is the same:

• A campaign filer registered as a major donor or client, whose registration lists the same phone number or street address as the organization's lobbying registration, is the organization itself. Its campaign money is shown on the organization.
• A committee registered with the same phone number or street address is shown as a committee tied to the organization, not merged into it.

A shared ZIP code or city is not enough, and neither is a name on a contribution, which carries no filer ID. Those pairs are held for review and joined only once they have been checked against the filings. Each joined record keeps the IDs of the campaign records it was joined from.

Ballot measures

Measures in campaign filings are named in many ways. The map matches a measure to the voter guide only on one of:

• the Attorney General's initiative number;
• a proposition number the filer put first in the name, or in the filing's ballot number field; or
• the measure's official title.

A measure that doesn't match on any of these is left without official text rather than given a guessed one.

Found a wrong match?

If two records should be one, or one record mixes up two filers, please report it with the filings that show the difference.